Talking Turner

Archbishop of Canterbury Jane Asher Aubrey Beardsley Christopher Le Brun Peter Cockroft John Constable André Derain Michael Fish	William Powell Frith Adam Hart-Davis William Hazlitt Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell Siân Lloyd Sue MacGregor Tim Marlow Henri Matisse	Michael Palin Cornelia Parker Leslie Parris Ezra Pound Richard Redgrave David Roberts John Ruskin James Wilson

Photo © David Williams Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury on Turner Angel Standing in the Sun, exhibited 1846, oil on canvas   © Tate, London 2002

'The Angel Standing in the Sun is Turner demonstrating something of the terror of light: it dissolves, soaks away the specific reality, it isn't just a benign glow or a clear spotlight. Other artists do astonishing things with light, but only Turner makes it frightening like this. All the more frightening because obviously irresistible and total.'